University of Melbourne Archives

University of Melbourne Archives is implementing a new public catalogue at https://archives.library.unimelb.edu.au that will be available from 20 November 2023. This catalogue will remain online until June 2024 but will not be updated. Information on this page may be superseded. Contact um-archives@unimelb.edu.au for questions or assistance
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Browse Collections

If you are not sure what you are looking for, browsing our database, rather than conducting a specific search, will help you become aware of the range of archival records we hold.

'Browse Collections' gives you three options:

Browse by Creator's Name gives you alphabetical lists of records creators. The term 'Creator' is a shorthand way of describing the person, office or organisation that created, received or accumulated a set of records in the course of doing business or in their personal lives. You can choose to view lists of organisations, persons or both. Once a list of matching creators is displayed, you can click on the creator's name to find out more about that person or organisation, or, to view details of our holdings for that creator, use the check boxes at the left of each name then click 'view associated records'.

Browse by Creator's Activity or Occupation gives you a list of occupation and activity terms to choose from. These describe the business function, personal activity or professional role of the people or organisations whose records are now held by the University of Melbourne Archives. The terms are drawn from the National Library of Australia's Occupations Thesaurus and the Australian Historic Records Register Thesaurus with some additional terms of particular relevance to our collection.

Select one or more terms from the list then click 'creators'. This will give you a list of matching people or organisations who have created archival records held by us. You can then navigate to more detailed information about the both the records creator and the records we hold.

Browse by Collection Category gives you a list of fourteen broad categories into which the Unviersity of Melbourne Archives' holdings can be divided, such as Culture and the Arts, Business, and Labour Organisations.

Select a collection category from the list then click 'view collections' to see a list of archival records matching that category. Note that most of the collection category have hundreds of matching records in them. Use the check box at the left of each record to select those you want to look at in more detail, then click 'view details for selected record'.